“Legal, of course.”
“God damn it, Wallace!”
“I see.” Carver looked at him. “Drugs?”
Sturgis lowered his eyes. “I just carried them; I didn’t push people to use them.”
“It isn’t the government that’s after you, is it?”
“No.”
“What happened? Did you steal from them?”
“Of course not.” He sat up. “I’m not a thief. I’ve accidentally come across something I shouldn’t have seen. They’re a little upset.”
Carver sighed. “Preston, tell me straight. Do you have any drugs with you?”
“No, I swear I don’t!”
“How in hell did you ever get into this? How did you make contact with these people?”
“Went where they sell. Asked questions, like a fool. Don’t ever do that, not that you’re about to. They don’t like questions.” He fell back on the couch and waggled his head from side to side. “I was lucky, they roughed me up a little, but after a while I got to meet someone. He discovered I knew something about social contacts - looked the part more than any of them. So, I’ve been the retired tourist. Until this.”
“Until what? What’s happened?”
“They blew up my car - that’s a rental outside.
“You injured?”
“No, Alexandra had it. Alice’s daughter. You never met her; she went with Alice after the divorce.”
“She hurt?”
“No. She wasn’t in it at the time. She was with Vasquez that day.”
“Vasquez?”
“Her old nanny. Cuban refugee, more a mother to her than Alice was. Took over when Alexandra was born. Did she ever. The kid spoke...hey, I’m the one with a problem. You don’t need all this shit about the family. Tonight my apartment was blown up, Wally!”
Carver was disbelieving. “On Beacon Street? They set off a bomb in a Beacon Street apartment?”
Sturgis nodded. “I was just coming in when the damn thing went off. Threw me clear across the yard. Killed poor Alfie.”
“And they’re `a little upset’. I suppose you don’t know if you were followed?”
“I wasn’t, I’m sure of it. I turned off in Portsmouth on the way up and drove around the town for a while just to see. There was no one.”
“And now?”
“Now you got to hide me. Wally, I’m desperate. I called Phil Stang’s place at Cave Mountain. He’s the only other person I know around here and he’s in Florida. You’re my last chance.”
“Hah,” More bark than laugh.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Wally.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “They’ve got a long gun. They can find me almost anywhere. But they may not think to look up here in the mountains.”
“So I’m to hide you for the rest of your life, huh? That’s what it would amount to, Preston, from what you’re telling me.”
Wheedling, “Just for a few days. Long enough for me to work out details. Wallace, I’m going to change my identity, go away. Another part of the country. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“And do what? You’re broke, you change your name you can’t even collect social security. What are you going to live on?”
“I’ll get along. I can still earn a living, I’ll just have to keep working longer.”
“Real estate development is not a low profile business.”
“No real estate. I’m going to teach.”
“What not to do?” He sighed. “All right. Tonight you’ll stay here in this house. Tomorrow I’ll hide you.” He eyed Sturgis’s velvet collared overcoat and polished shoes. “And get you some country clothes.”
“Wally, one thing. Promise me. No one must know I’m here. Even your son-in-law or whatever he is. These people seem to have ears everywhere.”
“Alright. Though the more I hear the less I like this,” said Wally. He rose. “One thing clear, your word; you’re through with drugs.”
Sturgis was like an aged golden retriever, practically licking Carver’s hand. He was also less hurt than he had first appeared; with sanctuary granted, making it thankfully to an upstairs guest room without help.
Carver stood looking at the blackness outside his French doors. His instinct was still to call Hudson, then remembered he was in Europe on some sort of ski area errand for his wife, Cilla. He sighed again. He should never have agreed to Sturgis’ request. He was getting soft in his dotage.
Chapter 3
Cilla Wheaton Rogers stood behind her desk looking at the office. It would have to go. Other than the well-used oak desk, which came from her late father’s house, nothing else suited her. The former occupant had furnished it to his military taste - cold, formal and smelling of tobacco. Still. It had been four months since the man had last used it; any longer and she’d call in an exorcist.
She sat down to paperwork. Running the ski area for her Abenaki relatives had more to it than fun runs swooping its trails, as she was discovering each day of the two months she’d been its general manager. She studied the proposal from Breugen Corporation for a detachable quad lift that Hudson had faxed, and smiled; he didn’t like what another lift meant - more people at the area. But if he had his way the mountain would be a private ski park for the two of them. It wasn’t that he was antisocial. He just didn’t like people much, particularly in numbers. He felt the mentality of a group sank to that of its slowest member, and a decision to put more skiers on Great Haystack’s existing trails was received with an acquiescent sigh - particularly coupled with the discovery that he’d be making the trip to Germany to discuss final arrangements. He wasn’t wild about flying. No, he didn’t like flying at all. She had a feeling something must have happened in the years before she met him. Which was all of them, until a few months ago.
Actually, she knew just a fraction of what she felt was there to know about her new husband. But that had been enough. She’d spend the next fifty or so years getting to know the rest. And with Hudson there’d be something new learned every week, because very little of himself was made available to others at any one time. A tall man at nearly six foot three with wrestler’s shoulders, yet gentle, almost shy. She’d seen the delight he took in a miniature waterfall appearing unexpectedly around a bend in the trail; enjoyed with him the quiet of a softwood forest roofed by tall pines, where one could almost hear “the tiptoe of a bird” - where had she heard that phrase? Hudson had found his home in Bartlett, New Hampshire next to the National Forest. From the sluggish flatlander she’d first met last June whose idea of a nature trip was a ride on the swan boats in Boston’s Public Garden, he’d developed - partly through her she admitted - an appreciation for each plant, each animal and a place where they could grow together without human interference.
A triple knock on the door announced her mountain manager: late-thirties; dark good looks, solidly built. Kurt Britton had the self confident, almost aggressive bearing of the Marine Corps captain he had been until hired by Floyd Carr, the ski area’s former general manager, two years before.
“The summit’s getting gusts over forty.”
“Had we better close the triple?”
“Already done. The east chair and the Borvigs can handle the crowd we’ve got today.” He paused. “We took a little kid to the hospital. Not skiing, at the nursery. Two years old. Jill found her unconscious in that little penned area; she’d been making snow cookies.” He looked at notes. “Susie Tarden. We reached the mother in the base lodge; she’s gone with her.”
Cilla rose from her chair.
“You’re not planning to go to the hospital yourself.”